Well, this was released (apparently) on Blu via Drakes Avenue to very little fanfare. Weird how little acknowledgment there is that this even exists. Does anyone have it? I want to get it but have heard nothing about it yet as far as quality or extras. Wondering if I should just wait for the Cinema Guild release a couple months from now.

The film was released in the UK last year by New Wave films and received pretty good reviews: Little White Lies magazine said that it was his best film, for example. New Wave is run by Robert Beeson, who used to run Artificial Eye with Pam and Andi Engel. Ceylan appears to have a good relationship with Beeson as the two companies have released all his films in the UK, with Ceylan moving to New Wave when it was set up. New Wave seems to use Drakes Avenue to release its DVDs and BluRays. Unfortunately, the disc release appears to have been delayed for some unspecified reason as Amazon doesn't have any stock or a new release date and it isn't in my local HMV. The New Wave disc releases seem to be of fairly good quality as far as I can tell, but you might want to support your local distributor. Cinema Guild looks similar to New Wave in that they both release more radical films that probably wouldn't be distributed in their respective areas otherwise. For example, New Wave has released the most recent films by Gomes. Grisebach and Martel, as well as Summer 1993 by Carla Simon.

That's really good news. I was a bit concerned that the release might end up getting cancelled like New Wave's disc release of Arnaud Desplechin's My Golden Days. Hopefully there won't be any problems with the new Jia Zhang-ke film which New Wave is apparently releasing in UK cinemas in April.

For those interested and who did not already know, all of Ceylan's behind-the-scenes making of docs for his features are available separately here. This includes the new one for The Wild Pear Tree. Initially I was a little frustrated that it did not feature on any of the disc releases but now, noting that it's over six hours long, I can see why. Still, it's frustraing that it wasn't included on a double disc set or something as here it's broken up into parts and goes for about 30 bucks total. Ceylan's making of docs have always tended toward the long side and that's great but they've gotten progressively longer over time to the point now where I expect the next one to be Lav Diaz length.

For those interested and who did not already know, all of Ceylan's behind-the-scenes making of docs for his features are available separately here. This includes the new one for The Wild Pear Tree. Initially I was a little frustrated that it did not feature on any of the disc releases but now, noting that it's over six hours long, I can see why. Still, it's frustraing that it wasn't included on a double disc set or something as here it's broken up into parts and goes for about 30 bucks total. Ceylan's making of docs have always tended toward the long side and that's great but they've gotten progressively longer over time to the point now where I expect the next one to be Lav Diaz length.

Wow! Thanks for sharing. I did not like the film at all but I would still like to check out the making of doc to see a master at work.

Six and a half hours is quite something. This has to be among the longest making-of docs, no?

I think so. Rob Zombie's shooting diaries are long but not that long : 4h20 for Halloween and 2h26 for The Devil's Rejects. Blade Runner's Dangerous Days is 3h31.
I'd suppose though that the extremely long extras for Peter Jackson's LOTR might be considered as longer making ofs.

There was also Jackson's 3h43m The Making of The Frighteners that for a long time was exclusive to laserdisc. The Autobiography of Oldboy runs 3h30m and Night and Fog in Zona—which mostly chronicles the making of Wang Bing's 'Til Madness Do Us Part, with a shorter section on Three Sisters—comes in at 3h55m, or about the same length as the movie it's documenting. But those pale next to How Princess Mononoke Was Born, which clocked in at 6h40m and was originally released as a boxed set of three VHS tapes. (It was later reissued on three DVDs.)

Yeah I’d probably buy the film you like rather than the one you don’t.

If you only see yourself watching the doc once, it’s available to rent online but you have to pay to see each of the three parts separately. It’s still cheaper than the current price of the blu-ray though.

I’ve only seen his last three features but this film managed to absolutely floor me. Ceylan digs into the turbulent nature of the young adult with an intricacy few films afford while applying the dry existentialism that’s become his staple, and it’s a wonder he hasn’t ventured to this territory more often. I don’t think I’ve seen a film that perfectly captures the developmental period of one’s 20s like this in some time, maybe ever. This approach surprisingly reminded me of Lonergan’s Margaret in the authentic moral ambiguity of interactions between Sinan and the world. Sinan, like Margaret, is a character I deeply understand, feel compassion for, align with, am repelled by, and pity. The commitment to his convictions is admirable but reveals a solipsism that cannot sustain, as well as doubt, self-consciousness, and a suffering that’s kept repressed by the ego and the will’s desperation to comprehend life in absolute terms, and to be unique.

Sinan says early on that we are not special and that one should find acceptance in the ephemerality of life’s opportunities as learning experiences and make meaning from them. This is a profound intelligent thought, but does Sinan practice it or even really believe it yet? Sinan is so angry when all he really wants is peace. He challenges others, provokes, taunts, and pushes away from a position of superiority because he doesn’t know what else to do. I’m reminded of those ages when you can be so sure of truth, and are even able to grasp at wisdom, but not hold onto it or recognize that perspective is not a static or finite endgame, it’s an onion peeling back layers of insight on the road to self-discovery. The film profiles Sinan’s own chaotic identity with a subtle ferocity that brings isolation to sobering shifts in awareness, disrupting the comfort of the pains by seeing one’s family, culture, and oneself in shades of light previously invisible, and ironically unwanted despite a drive to experience and master perception.

Why do we feel so disturbed when we notice flaws in a world we resent, and why do we still feel numb on a mission to discover beauty in a world that we can see? Is the self the primary barrier to access, our limitations circumstances to accept rather than merely admit, and how can we overcome such ennui without the proper tools? We want to make meaning so strongly sometimes when we have to simply exist in order to do so naturally, take a step back to see clearly rather than obsessively analyze ourselves into further despair. Soon Sinan will form a more fixed and confident identity, but not as securely as he thinks. That will be enough for him someday, and maybe if he can’t see it it’s enough that we can. The opportunities he speaks of early on are already, and have always been happening to him, and they will continue to shape him both consciously and unconsciously for eternity. All he has to do is alter the course of his passion toward avoiding complacency as he keeps moving forward with a motivation to grow, a quality he has, that will take him far.

This is narcissism at its most compassionate, an oxymoron only those who truly understand the labyrinthine dimensions of life can help realise. For such intense content, Ceylan treats the characters with a dose of unconditional empathy transforming the narrative into an optimistic film. I can’t wait to see what he does next, and I hope he continues to explore new developmental periods to communicate his humanism.

I also found the scene tracking the walk that Sinan takes with one of his army friends to be fascinating in the way they casually talk about horrific acts. It does fit into the wider thematic narrative of modern disillusioned youth, as does the scene at the dried up riverbank following Hatice’s wedding, but I still found some of that conversation between Sinan and his army friend particularly chilling.

I’m with you all the way on the Hatice scene, which is the best in the film and within only a few minutes exposes all the conflicting dualities of each character. They feel connected and disconnected to each other and to nature, find acceptance and grace in the present while exhibiting fear and dissatisfaction when these moments escape them. They are confident and anxious all at once, encapsulating both the beauty of connection and the truths that neither have come to terms with yet, which elicits a dense hardened sadness that in time will evaporate into clouds of serenity. This scene captures a connection between two souls I would imagine to be one of the best moments in each’s life when looking back one day through a filtered nostalgia, but the raw authenticity of the actual moment is what life is about and defines that period of identity development’s conflicting relationship with the cosmic mysteries of the world, as we awaken to so much content at once and thus feel the strongest of all emotional and philosophical extremes as we make our ways through each instance, overwhelmed, scared, and impassioned, but not yet grateful.

The conversation between Sinan and his army buddy was indeed indicative of neither’s development to the stage where mortality and morality are treated with the realism that comes with experience and perspective. Two other scenes that struck me were the provocation of the writer, which was the first moment Sinan honestly revealed his deficits while clinging to false confidence, and the subsequent one where he ups the ante to argue with a peer over religion, an argument that cannot be won, ever, and yet analysis and cognitive intelligence are Sinan’s only weapons against the world without an experienced emotional intelligence. Little does he know that he doesn’t need to face the world with weapons, but it signals a transparency into his fractured soul that desperately wants to feel stable and important by trying to identify authenticity and truth obsessively through words when he doesn’t have the capacity yet to just ‘be.’ Even through these exhibitions of communication, including the conversation with the army friend, Ceylan never treats Sinan with judgment but only identification. It’s miraculous that he’s able to align so deeply with Sinan yet keep an objective distance to draw the complexities inherent in normal development. Sinan is not going through a unique experience but his own experience is unique.

That last line of yours is I think the film’s greatest achievement, a bit like The Souvenir it’s the deeply personal made universal, an aim many films aspire to but very few manage to achieve.

And yes the scene with the writer played inversely to something like the hallucinatory mother scene from Phantom Thread. In this film, the scene with the writer is as you say the first time you see the duality he is struggling with and in Anderson’s film, it is the first time you see Reynolds when he is not in control and the facade is down.

Sorry for the random comparisons, but I cannot write as articulately as yourself but hopefully by trying to comparatively explain how I related to different scenes/movies helps me communicate what I mean.

You’re communicating quite clearly to me, and I appreciate your thoughts. The Souvenir especially is a great comparison and exactly why I believe it’s been praised so much (for the record, I liked it too). The Phantom Thread comparison is interesting, and while there are commonalities in the depictions of naked humanity, the key difference for me is the presence of another actual human being and their respective awarenesses to such truths. Sinan feels threatened by others because of the natural anxiety that occurs when one is present in a social world without confidence, and his psyche responds by burying any sense of awareness to his inner conflict. Reynolds is actually facing this part of himself, if only for a transient moment, and he is contending with his own mortality- in contrast to Sinan’s contention with youthfulness- as his controlled life is disrupted unexpectedly, revealing an identity and sense of self much more shallow and vulnerable than he could have anticipated. In this way the scenes are perhaps even more perfect inverts, as they involve different stages of life and one’s defense mechanisms flourishing while the other’s wilts. Thankfully Sinan possesses certain strengths to challenge, and has less external enablers protecting, these cognitive distortions; and he will surely have more productive confrontations with himself a lot earlier in life than Reynolds Woodcock!